leaving for the Crimea, it may not be wholly uninteresting now; as it is founded on facts, which alas, must be far, very far, out–numbered by parallel facts and circumstances. 

 Having business at Gravesend, I arrived there late at night, and took a bed at an Inn in one of the thoroughfares of that place; I retired early to rest, and was awakened in the morning by the sound of martial music; and ever delighting in the "soul–stirring fife and drum," I jumped out of bed and found it was troops, about to sail for India; I therefore, dressed myself and strolled down to the beach to witness what, to me, was quite a novel sight, the embarkation. 

 It was a clear bright morning in June, and the sun was shining in full splendor, while the calm bosom of the beautiful Thames reflected back all its dazzling effulgence. The river was studded with shipping, and to add to the beauty of the scene, two or three East Indiamen had just anchored there, and as I viewed them majestically riding, I could easily fancy the various feelings their arrival would create, not only in the breasts of those who were in these stately barks, but of the hundreds of expectant friends, who were anxiously awaiting their return. With how many momentous meetings was that day to be filled. How many a fond and anxious mother, who had, perhaps, for years, nightly closed her eyes in praying for a beloved son, was in a few hours to clasp him to the maternal breast. Here, too, might be pictured, the husband and father returning, not as he left his wife and children, in the vigour of health and manhood, but with his cheeks pallid and his constitution enfeebled by hard service in a tropical climate. Some few had, doubtless, realized those gorgeous dreams of affluence and greatness which first tempted them to leave their native land. I once knew one myself, whose hardy sinews had for nearly sixty years, braved the fervid heat of the torrid sun; but he returned to endure life, not to enjoy it. He told me, he had left England at the early age of fourteen. He had, as it were, out grown his young friendships. Eastern habits and associations had usurped the place of those domestic feelings, which his early banishment had not allowed to take root, we might question if the seeds were even sown in his young breast, for he was an orphan, with no other patrimony than the interest of connexions, which procured him a cadetcy in the East India Company's Service. On his departure, he earned no parent's blessing for him, no anxious father sighed, no fond indulgent mother wept and prayed. As I stood musing on the scene, a gentleman, a seeming idler, like myself, joined me, and after many judicious remarks on what was passing around, informed me he was there to 

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